


binary system

by tiend



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Battle Couple, Gen, Naboo Free Armour, Post-Order 66, Unnamed Jedi - Freeform, Unnamed planet, last stands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 11:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16197026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiend/pseuds/tiend
Summary: Near the end of the Clone Wars, a separatist captain surrenders to the nearest Jedi. Her tank company integrates with the clone troops better than anyone could've anticipated, but the Jedi dies, shot by their own troops, the GAR ships in orbit leave and never come back. She's left with a scar and the knowledge that something's wrong with the clone commander. In the meantime, she tries to hold everything together, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or be executed for treason. Whatever comes first.





	1. honourable opponent

Three weeks ago, CIS command had realised they were going to lose this planet, and reversed strategic goals. Remaining units were to embark on a campaign of asset denial; destroy infrastructure. Burn the cities to the ground. Burn the hinterlands, and retaliate with deadly force if the civilians attempted to save their homes and livelihoods. Captain Dulkha had received her new orders, saluted, and wheeled east as fast as her tanks could go.

In a ridiculous confection of a country estate, she’d bowed before a Jedi and a clone soldier, and surrendered her sword and her command. They’d given her command back to her, half an hour later; the Jedi trusted her, and the cloned commander was in desperate need of armour.

They’d driven out each day, a mixed convoy of clones and ex-CIS troops; destroying droid nests and saving whatever they could. They’d come back bone-weary to find more refugees packed into the estate’s grounds. The veterans were wary around each other, but there’d been no major incidents. Neither she or Commander Marev would have tolerated it.

She’d just finished up with an astronavigation briefing on one of the tower balconies. The small group had come down the stairs when a heavily wounded and terrified Jedi had come pelting around the corner. Dulkha had just managed to catch them when they collapsed; then it was a double-time run to the castle’s safe room, bolts singing around them as they got closer. She’d been winged just as they got the door closed.

Comms were out, cut when the blast doors closed. The Jedi was unconscious and still bleeding; they were carried to one of the beds. Lt. Fuir started triaging with the safe room’s medkit. Dulkha tasked Lt. Papad with inventorying the weapons locker, while she tried to get up the feeds from the rest of the castle. The nobles were paranoid enough out here to have a range of surveillance feeds, and she desperately needed information. What the fuck had happened?

They all jumped when the incoming comm signal sounded. Dulkha picked up the headset.

“Captain Dulkha, Naboo Free Armour,” she said, crisply, praying a little. The name was misleading; she had a fair number of Pantorans in her unit as well. Not matter what the Senators insisted, both planets were too far out from the Core to be entirely content with the Republic.

“Dulkha,” said a blessedly familiar voice. “Commander Marev. Is the traitor in there?”

“I - what? It was one of mine?” she said, relief turning to shock. “You don’t have them yet?”

“No,” Marev said. “I don’t mean your troops. The Jedi. Is the Jedi in there?”

“Yes, but - I don’t understand. The Jedi? You mean your C.O.?” Of all the scenarios she’d thought of, Commander Marev accusing his Jedi of treason had not been one of them.

“They have conspired against the Republic, and attempted to depose the Supreme Chancellor.” His voice was flattened and strange, no hint of his usual lilt. She frowned.

“Really? Your C.O.?” She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice. The Miralukan seemed to leave all command decisions to Commander Marev. They’d spent less time in ops than they had down with the refugees. Not that she didn’t appreciate their work in keeping the refugees calm.

“The Jedi are all traitors,” he said, inflectionless. “Open the doors, Dulkha. The traitor must be executed.” She’d read their rules of engagement. This wasn’t in them.

“Where are you?” she asked. Lt. Papad had the weapons locker open. Good. They weren’t completely defenseless. The furniture was solid enough to make some good barricades.

“What?” She’d startled him out of his monotone.

“I’m sitting down on the floor in the entry room, about two metres from the left blast door.”

“Oh, I see,” he said, and just like that the lilt was back in his voice. “My left or your left?”

“Towards the tower.” It was beautiful, and indefensible. Something out of a fairy tale.

“Okay.” She heard some rustling, and a thunk as he presumably sat on the floor.

“It’s been good, the last few weeks,” she made herself say. Anything to break the loop.

“It has,” said Marev, softly. “Dulkha, I -”

“Give command to Nerev. He’ll hold them together.” He wasn’t the most competent of her lieutenants, but he was the most charismatic. She’d trust him not to let their troops turn on each other. It’d be a bloodbath with the refugees caught in the middle. “Tell them there was an assassin. You’ll need the tanks.”

“Dulka,” said Marev. “Stand down. We have to kill the Jedi.”

“I can’t. You don’t. This isn’t right.” Papad gave her a weapon. She signalled for some grenades, and he trotted back with them.

“We’re more than half-way through the doors,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

“Are you going to shoot everyone else in here, too? They’ll know,” she said. It would’ve been so much less complicated if the Jedi had just died. She looked over at Fuir.

“Not if they surrender,” he said, promptly. “Face down on the floor with their hands on their head.”

“Thank you,” she said. She wouldn’t order them to die here. Papad closed his eyes with relief.

“You too,” Marev said. “If you. Don’t make me. Dulka, please.”

“Marev, what the fuck is going on out there?” She’d saved the Jedi from their own troops. Why?

“They betrayed the Republic,” he repeated, steady as a droid.

“So did I, Marev!” Dulkha didn’t regret it. The Republic had betrayed Naboo first, standing aside and making pretty speeches while its people suffered and died during the invasion. When some over-rich noble had decided to fund and field an armour division she’d quit Naboo’s planetary defense force on the spot. It was worth the end of her career to give the Republic a black eye.

“You surrendered,” he said. She had. She didn’t regret that, either. 

“It was the Jedi accepted my surrender, and now you want to kill them without even giving them that chance? Don’t they get a trial?” None of this made any sense. It was unbelievable.

“Good soldiers follow orders,” he said. She rolled her eyes.

“Like I followed mine?” she scoffed. “This was a lawful order? Who gave it?” The Republic Navy was in orbit, but an hour ago she’d have sworn Marev would’ve laughed at an admiral trying to impose their authority.

“My lord,” he said. “The Supreme Chancellor.” What was wrong with his voice?

“I’m not opening the doors so you can shoot a wounded prisoner,” she decided, shrugging her shoulders helplessly at her junior officers. They stared at her wide-eyed.

“We’re nearly through them, Dulkha,” he said.

“Good for you,” she said cordially, and checked the charge on her weapon. “We’ll be waiting.”

“I don’t - we don’t want to shoot you. Open the doors.” He sounded more like himself. 

“I’d rather not get shot again either, Marev.” Fuir gave her a hesitant thumbs-up. They’d stabilised the Jedi.

“You’re wounded?” He sounded concerned. As if her scratch mattered more than a gutshot Jedi.

“What are you going to do, reprimand your soldiers for shooting me, and then execute a wounded Jedi?” she said, incredulous.

“A traitor to the Republic and the Supreme Chancellor.”

“Oh, fuck off. No one in their right mind would include your C.O. in a conspiracy.”

“Good soldiers follow orders,” said Marev flatly. Dulkha pinched the bridge of her nose.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, and got behind the barricade, putting the grenades carefully on the floor next to her.

“Dulka, please.”

“I always did like the way you said my name,” she said, inanely, and waited for the end.


	2. turnabout is fair play

Marev found her in ops, carefully marking out the locations of possible droid cysts on the big holomap.

“Finished debriefing?” he asked. They were getting a slow drip of CIS deserters in, now that the war was officially over. Most were uncomfortable around clone soldiers, and Marev’s rank made it worse. When Captain Dulkha did the interviews she got more and better information; after all, she’d been a Separatist herself. Once upon a time.

“Almost. Got one still in medical; I’ll finish up with them tomorrow.” This one had run with as many data-chips as they could find to so they could get an abscessed tooth removed. Droid armies were apparently short on dentists. “They claim to have a remote deactivation algorithm for the B1s.”

“That would be useful,” said Commander Marev. “You’re scratching it again.”

Dulkha looked at her right hand in disgust, which had started worrying at the blaster burn of its own volition.

“Time for another round,” she said, and fished the tube of locally made cream from her tunic pocket. None of the deserters had come in with any medical supplies yet, let alone bacta. The Republic ships had boosted from orbit soon after the capital-i Incident. Marev hadn’t been able to get a clear answer about resupply yet. The GAR appeared to still be in chaos.

“We’re not running that low, yet,” said Marev. It was healing cleanly, but he felt responsible for it all the same. She’d been shot by his own men.

“Good to set an example for when we are.” Dulkha had taken to wearing the occasional short sleeved shirt. Partly so people could see she wasn’t wearing a bacta patch. Partly because of the heat.

“Dulkha,” said Marev slowly. “You’re under no obligation to answer this.”

Her eyebrows did their best to disappear into her hairline. “Ominous.”

“Why’d you join the Seps?” he said, bullying his way through his discomfort.

“Oh. The short answer is that I’m from Naboo,” said Dulka, and sat down on an overstuffed chair.

“The Supreme Chancellor of the Republic is from Naboo,” Marev reminded her.

“You’re welcome to him,” she retorted. “I’ve got cousins in the diplomatic corps. Man’s been a gaping asshole for years. You want a longer version, then?”

“Please.” The clone commander did not look pleased. He was sitting up on a table, one leg swinging like a tooka’s tail. At least she was practised at telling the story by now.

“I was thirteen when Naboo was invaded. My family went into the internment camps, the Queen went to the Senate, did all the right things, nothing happened. People started dying in food riots, either trampled to death or shot by droids.“

She took a drink, and looked sideways at Marev. He was still listening, but he didn’t look any happier. “Nothing kept on happening. More people died. Naboo was freed, not because the Republic made the Trade Federation withdraw, not because humans were pushed hard enough that they had to make an alliance with the gungans - nothing like fighting and dying together to bring people together - but because a slave child tried to shelter in the cockpit of a starfighter, and went up with the rest of the task group.”

“That child was Anakin Skywalker!” Marev pointed out, briefly forgetting that Anakin Skywalker’s men had probably executed him for treason two weeks ago.

“Yes, because Jedi have appalling ideas about childcare,” Dulkha said. “So it came down to him, and the Queen’s capture of Nute Gunray. Much good that did us in the long run.”

“How so?”

“Once their forces were off-planet, she was persuaded to give him back to the Trade Federation. So much leverage, just gone, poof, right out the airlock. They’ve never paid reparations, you know. Eventually they lost the final appeal, but the Republic’s never made them cough up a decicred. Much good Palps did us.”

“But -”

“Oh yes, we’re free. Nearly bankrupt, but Naboo’s still free. Chommell Sector’s still free. As free as you can get under the Republic. Do you know how many other planets weren’t as lucky as us? How many sectors?”

“I - ” It was hardly the sort of thing that had been covered in his flash training.

“Shouldn’t have been luck, Marev. Should never have had to come down to luck. So I joined the Naboo Planetary Defence Force, in case we weren’t as lucky next time, but when war broke out - the whole system’s rotten, and I thought - fool that I was - it’d only take a little push to bring the whole thing tumbling over.”

“A little push,” Commander Marev repeated with intense disbelief.

“I said I was a fool. Didn’t occur to anyone the Republic had an army up their collective sleeves, either.”

He looked smug about that. Clones. They knew how good they were. Dulkha’s own tank crews had started developing clone-like habits. She tried not be obviously grateful for it.

“So, that’s the middling version. The complete version involves telling you how my family died, and I’d prefer to be drunk for that. Did that answer your question?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But thank you.” From the start, she’d never been what he had be trained to think of as an Seppie officer; she’d deserted, but it hadn’t been for cowardice. It’d been because she refused to make war on civilians. Marev had found life simpler before she’d turned up at the castle gates, white flags flying high and proud. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

“Can I ask you a question, Marev?” Dulkha said, swirling the last of the water in her cup.

“I suppose.”

“Why’d you think your Jedi was a traitor?”


	3. a fine and private place

Once you’d seen enough of them it becomes obvious. Even through holonet footage, grainy and blue. It’s clearest with the older ones. There’s that legendary serenity, but there’s more to it than that. Not arrogance, but security. They’ve been places and seen things most people can’t afford to lift their heads to dream about. What a Jedi Knight knows, marrow-deep and sure as the sea, is this: the galaxy loves them more than you.

It doesn’t mean you can’t kill them.

Dulkha shook herself. She had to get this done before too many of the clone officers noticed she was missing; staring into space getting metaphysical wasn’t going to do her or the corpse any good. Time enough for that during her next bout of sleeplessness.

She’d been briefed on anti-Jedi tactics back in the CIS. The tone had varied wildly between Jedi as terrifying mind readers, able to twist a person’s will against them, or weakened relics who let their clones take all the risks while they cowered in the rear. Neither seemed plausible, but the Miralukan General she’d surrendered to only seemed to wear their lightsaber out of habit, and had spent more time with the refugees collecting fables and folk music than they had in ops. Dulkha had been surprised, but grateful for it. In her experience, scared, bored people were prone to turning into a mob, and a mob meant riots. The Jedi, abuse of the mind powers or not, had kept everyone calm.

None of the CIS manuals - including one that had been dedicated to Count Dooku, with remarkable tastelessness - had mentioned getting shot in the back by your own troops, but from the news they were getting from the GAR these days it was shockingly effective.

“You had a better run of it than most people, and you died quickly,” she said to the Jedi corpse, in lieu of anything better, and rolled it off the trolley into the alcove.

Commander Marev had thrown some gas grenades into the fortified jewelbox of the castle’s safe rooms, blocked off the doors with a ray shield, and waited them out. By the time she’d come around in the medbay, the Miralukan Jedi was thoroughly dead, lying fractured in the safe room, blood dry and cracked on the parquet. The clones had just left it there, afterwards, not even pulled something over the broken face. That worrying blind spot that was one of the other things keeping her up at night. The lightsaber had gone missing; she hoped Marev had it. If one of hers did she’d have them thrashed and drummed out of her company.

As soon as her arm had healed enough, she’d wrapped the corpse in some spare curtains and taken it down here. Whatever noble family owned this place had invested in an extensive set of catacombs, and the stone alcoves meant she didn’t have to dig a grave or worry about the water table.

“You weren’t a very good warrior knight, and the best thing you did as an officer was leave everything up to Marev,” she told the bundle. “But you gave me a second chance, and you were good with the refugees, so thank you.” She dithered, briefly, but it was a Jedi’s body she was hiding.

“May the Force be with you,” she finished, and set about wedging the slab back into the side of the alcove.


	4. bitter harvest

Summer wore on, the pale green of spring growing deeper and darkening under the near-constant beat of the sun. No one came back, not the GAR, not the CIS. Dulkha never thought of either without kissing her medallion for luck. For this backwater place to stay forgotten in whatever convulsions were happening outside. Safe enough for some of the refugees to trickle away from the castle. Others stayed for fear, or love: three of her troops so far had asked permission to jump the midsummer bonfire with a native.

Two more wanted to know if clone soldiers were allowed to jump the bonfire. She’d been putting off having that particular conversation with Commander Marev.

They - Marev and her - had become the de facto rulers of the countryside by right of arms. Dulkha would never have believed as a youngling that being a princess would involve so many sheets of flimsiplast. Her piles looked almost manageable now, she thought, absently flicking through them. As it had gotten hotter Dulkha had taken to working late, waiting for the temperature to drop before she slept. Fewer fever dreams and nightmares that way. She stretched, and rolled some of the tension out of her shoulders.

Someone rapped on her door, and opened it without waiting for a response. Marev, probably; the duty officer wouldn’t have stopped him.

“Come in,” she said, rearranging the stacks of datapds and flimsi, and locking away the classified material. She was right; he came in, shutting the door behind him, and ranged around the perimeter of her office, picking up some of the aristo curiosities and putting them back down. He had something on his mind, and it had nearly worked its way to the surface like a splinter. Dulkha watched him, patiently. He put down the orrery, and his shoulders slumped.

“Do you know. Dulkha,” he said, staring a thousand miles past her. “Dulkha, I killed my Jedi.” Gone was his soldier’s bearing, and his hands grasped at nothing down by his sides. She scrabbled frantically across her desk, sheets flying everywhere, trying to reach him. But he’d blindly unclipped a pistol by the time her shoulder took him in the chest as she lurched forward. Marev staggered backwards, and Dulkha turned into him, torquing his wrist as hard as she could, trying to get him to drop it, drop it, get it away from him. Anywhere he couldn’t use it on himself.

“No, no, Marev, no,” she told him, fiercely. “Put it down, Marev, come on, no, no.”

“But I - they’re dead, and I killed them.” The emptiness was replaced by an agonised knowledge, a truth so bright it had burned him. His other arm came up and around - he’d remembered he had two - and pried one of her hands off, holding it slackly. “I don’t want to hurt you, not again. Dulkha, we shot you.” She slammed her elbow into his solar plexus, and smashed his wrist on the solid edge of a bookcase. The blaster dropped, and she kicked it away under her desk. One down, one to go. He probably had a knife.

“Dulkha, I killed them, I killed them,” he said, sing-song and half-choked; she thought he might be crying. A child soldier that’d been flash-trained before he could walk, but Marev was barely struggling now. “We were made for the Jedi, my whole life was for them, we all were. Dulkha, they’re dead.”

Fuck it. She threw her weight backwards, springing both feet off the floor, and took Marev crashing to the floor with her. She sat on him, unbuckled the other holster, and sent it flying down the other end of the room. A second’s reflection, and her own went spinning after it.

There was a hesitant knock on the door.

“Yes?” she said, dropping into a command voice with the ease of long practice. Marev had turned his face to the side, tears blotting into the thick pile of the fancy rug. She reached down, thumb on his cheekbone, smoothing them away.

“Is everything alright in there? Sirs?” said the duty officer.

“Yes,” she lied, firmly. “We’ll be out soon.”

“Uh. Just checking.”

“No problem. Sorry about the thumping.” She sighed at the man under her. So much for an early turn-in. Too risky letting his command see him like this. There’d be gossip if he spent the night with her, but better that than the truth. Whatever the truth was. Something very strange had happened in the castle’s safe rooms.

“Marev? Hey, hey there. Marev,” she said, gently, stroking his curls. “We’re going to go up to my room in a bit, okay? When you can. We can go up there, it’ll be quiet.” Plus it had a fancy aristo’s bed, and she could zip-tie him to the bedposts to keep him out of trouble for the night. “Ssssssh. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was me,” he whispered, looking far away at something terrible only he could see, voice thin and brittle as cracking ice. “They’re dead, and it was me. I gave the orders.”


End file.
